Final: B-B-E 61, Battle Lake 33 - epic!

The Jaguars' passing game was clicking like it never has tonight - they play the most unselfish basketball I've seen in 15+ years of following high school sports.

The B-B-E student section did a fantastic job of cheering tonight!

What a convincing win! Their largest margin of victory for B-B-E in a sub-section championship game ever. The Jaguars boys basketball team now faces #3 seed Norman County East (22-6) out of the north sub-section for the Section 6A championship game. Tip off at Jim Gremmels Court on the campus of UM-Morris is at 7:00pm on Friday, March 18. Battle Lake ends a very solid season with a final record of 22-5, holding the Little Eight Conference title to themselves to go with a sub-section runner-up finish.

This is awesome baby! The Jaguars have now won five sub-section titles in the program's history. B-B-E was founded in 1988 with the merger of neighboring Highway 55 and Prairie Conference rivals Belgrade-Elrosa and Brooten. Current B-squad coach Brad Goodwin was the first B-B-E head coach, guiding the first Jaguars squad to a 14-7 season in 1988-1989. The Jaguars joined the West Central South Conference the following year, and in the 1990-1991 season, current head coach Dave Montbriand took over the program and was in charge for 14 more seasons. His first team finished 14-10 and 9-5 (2nd) in the conference, holding the WCCS lead until the final three games of the season. In Coach Montbriand's second year, they went all the way to the Sub-Section 5A-3 championship game at Halenbeck Hall (March 1992). That season ended in a 48-35 loss to a heavily-favored Coach Bob Brink-led Rocori team that should have wiped B-B-E off of the court. Coach Montbriand, who had countless other memorable regular seasons and memorable playoff wins from 1993 to 2005, stepped aside from the boys' program and was B-squad coach for three years for the Jaguar girls. Then in 2008 he returned as head coach of the boys' program and has three straight conference titles and three straight sub-section championship berths in the last three years. Interestingly, when he returned to the boys program, he did not make a concerted effort to step in as head coach, but the school board gave him the nod - a wise choice. Having Coach Goodwin and Coach Moscho (current head football coach) in the huddle with Coach Montbriand makes for one of the most knowledgeable and passionate coaching staffs in Minnesota. It's a real treat to follow the program under such circumstances!

Since that 1992 playoff meeting with Rocori, the Jaguars have played in sub-section title games in 1997, 1998, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2009, 2010, and now 2011. (A total of nine sub-section finals berths) They were sub-section champions in 1997, 1998, 2004, 2005, and now 2011.

More notes from the game will follow on Wednesday morning. I've been hard at it since 7:00am, which was 17 hours ago as I type this. A final comment...make no mistake about it, Norman County East will be tough as nails on Friday night. We need every last B-B-E fan out there to come out to Morris and cheer on our team!

More first half action tonight...


A handful of outstate boys basketball playoff results tonight, not grouped by section:
Long Prairie-Grey Eagle 49, Minnewaska Area 44 (Lakers' sparking season comes to a crashing end in the Sub-Section 6AA-West finals; they finish 25-5 overall)
Upsala 69, Sebeka 67 (Sebeka blows a 21-point lead! They led 46-31 at halftime)
Zimmerman 92, St.Cloud Cathedral 70
Melrose Area 64, New London-Spicer 60 (The Wildcats have been de-throned in Sub-Section 6AA-East! Finally.)

Fun facts, and yes, a little editorializing...two neighboring rivals who also reside in the very same conference will face off for the Section 6AA championship at Halenbeck Hall, SCSU, on Friday night in St.Cloud, when Melrose Area (16-12) and Long Prairie-Grey Eagle (24-4) match up with a state tournament berth on the line. I am pretty sure Melrose has not been to state since the mid-1990s if not further back than that. LP-GE last made it to the state tournament in 2002. The Thunder also went in 1998 after winning Section 8AA, when they finished in second place at state. This season, LP-GE won two regular season conference meetings with the Dutchmen by wide margins. New London-Spicer has won a sub-section title every year since 2006...until tonight. In that span, the Wildcats made "state" in '06, '08, '09, and 2010. Coming into tonight's game against Upsala, Sebeka was flying high, sitting on the minnesota-scores.net QRF rating at number two, ahead of B-B-E actually, while holding the #2 spot in the final Class A state poll of the season released on March 2. That was nothing less than a monumental choke to blow a 15-point halftime lead and fall in the final minute.